Gaming machines, such as video poker machines and the like, have been the cornerstone of the gaming industry for a number of years. Generally, the popularity of such gaming machines with players is dependent on the perceived likelihood of winning money at the machine and the intrinsic entertainment value of the machine. Players are most likely to be attracted to the most entertaining and exciting of these machines. Therefore, owner/operators of such video poker machines constantly strive to employ the most entertaining and exciting machines available because such machines attract frequent play and hence increase profitability to the machine operator. Accordingly, in the competitive gaming machine industry, there is a continuing need for gaming machine manufacturers to produce new types of poker games, or enhancements to existing poker games, which will attract frequent play by enhancing the entertainment value and excitement associated with the games, and by increasing a player's perception that they have a better chance to win when playing a game.
In the prior art there are two types of games. There is the standard 3×5 “five reel slot” machine where all symbols are randomly dealt and displayed and there is no player skill. The other type has a level of player skill. An example of this type of game is Draw Poker in which there is an initial deal of cards from which a player selects cards to be held and non-selected cards are replaced with new cards to improve the value of the player's hand.
The introduction of computerized video poker games permits players to see the representation of dealt hands on a video screen, and the players usually play against a standard payout table retained in the computer's memory. Conventional video draw poker is a single player game in which a player does not play against a dealer or other players, but rather tries to achieve the highest possible paying poker hand. A payout schedule is used to determine the amount awarded to the player for achieving specified winning combinations of cards.
In this standard poker format, the player has the option of holding or replacing 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 of the original dealt five cards. After the deal and draw phases, the resultant hand is evaluated against a posted list of winning combinations called a pay table. The ability to hold or replace cards gives the player some advantage in forming a winning hand of 5 cards. The pay table is designed against this player advantage to produce a game which has a certain game percent. This percent is typically defined as the percentage retained by the house or returned to the player.
The pay table combinations are ordered from highest to lowest and are typically royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair and jacks or better. The highest paying combinations (e.g. royal flush) have the lowest chance of occurring and the most frequently occurring are the lowest paying (e.g. jacks or better). Variations in player advantage such as the introduction of wild cards are balanced by changes in the pay table to derive a certain desired game percent.
One concept that has been successfully employed to enhance the entertainment value of a game is the concept of multiple pay lines that exceed the number of actual horizontal rows of a matrix of cards displayed on a video gaming machine. In such poker machines the pay lines include not only actual horizontal rows of cards being displayed but the pay lines also include cards in positions in more than one horizontal row of the matrix. Thus, some pay lines zig-zag between displayed horizontal rows and the number of pay lines greatly exceed the actual number of horizontal rows of cards being displayed in the matrix.
More particularly, a typical gaming device might have a 3×5 matrix (3 rows by 5 columns). This matrix easily and clearly supports three horizontal pay lines through the three rows of the matrix. To increase the number of pay lines the pay lines zig-zag between the rows of the 3×5 matrix and pass through only one card per column in the matrix. With this technique there are 35 (243) ways of choosing five symbols, one from each column in a 3×5 matrix.
In the simple slot matrix, multiple pay lines have been employed for many years and are well known in the art. In deal and draw poker games various pay lines zig-zag through the matrix that create different hands and motivate different holds per hand (or pay line) which would be time consuming and complicated to perform. One approach is to draw on only one row of the matrix of cards and copy the held card across all the cards in that column thereby holding it in all pay lines since all pay lines intersect that column in one of the cards. This ability to make one set of holds work across multiple pay lines has been very successful.
Over time gaming casino patrons become bored with standard versions of poker games and the casinos are continually looking for new variations of existing video poker games to continually create renewed interest and attract more players to play video poker.
Therefore, there is a need in the prior art to have a new poker game which is similar to conventional poker games in its playing strategy. Such a new game would stimulate renewed interest of experienced players, and the interest of casual players, who will both find the new game exciting.